Have you ever wondered why at times, your child has none of those symptoms at all, while at other times he seems to have all the symptoms of every diagnosis all at once?

Perhaps what he really has is PTSD or posttraumtic stress disorder. Â PTSD is an anxiety disorder in which the body is unable to handle the emotion of a past trauma. The body moves into â€œfight or flightâ€ mode as a way of coping with severe physiological stress. While clinicians are trained in â€œfight or flightâ€ philosophy, they often miss PTSD diagnosis in children, when failing to factor the effects of child abuse and neglect as part of the therapeutic landscape.

A diagnosis of PTSD may be appropriate if your child experiences all the symptoms of the Alphabet Soup only when something triggers a severe anxiety response due to past trauma. When the triggers are not present, no symptoms exist and the child appears very normal.

NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) has a nice brochure on â€œUnderstanding Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Recovery.â€Â While our military are certainly at risk, as well as rape victims and others, we often forget that severely abused and neglected children are also at risk of getting PTSD.

I quote the following from a NAMI brochure,

â€œTraumatic events have a very profound impact on a childâ€™s developing brain, body, and sense of self. Children carry these negative effects of trauma well into adulthood. More than one million reports of abuse and neglect are substantiated by child protection agencies every year in the United States. Children who experience chronic physical, sexual, or emotional abuse struggle in many areas of life. They are still developing cognitively, emotionally, and physically and thus express PTSD in different ways than adults.

Common problems included difficulty regulating their emotional reactions, establishing and maintaining relationships, controlling aggression, low self-esteem and functioning in school. Adolescents who were abused as children are vastly over represented in the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems.Â They also have high rates of substance abuse and psychiatric illness. Childhood trauma increases the risk of most psychiatric conditions and is a highly prevalent in borderline personality disorder, dissociative disorder and eating disorders.

As adults, people with extensive childhood trauma histories are at higher risk of developing medical problems. A large collaborative study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente focused on the impact of adverse experiences for children.Â The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study found the amount and intensity of childhood trauma correlated with many adult health problems ranging from obesity, alcoholism and depression to heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other serious medical problems.Â Children learn how to regulate their emotions and sense of self over time through caring relationships. When these relationships are the source of trauma for the child, they can cause confusion and lean to isolation and withdrawal.Â This may impair the childâ€™s ability to create trusting relationships later in life. These adverse effects underscore why prevention of and early intervention for child abuse whether physical, sexual, or emotional must remain a national priority.â€

For those of us with children affected by PTSD, it is important to take note of the final paragraph, which lists a host of medical problems that can follow the child into adulthood. Be conscious of future medical risks that segue into adulthood.

TOGETHER AT LAST FAMILY SUPPORT and Certified Parenting Coach Deborah Beasley ACPI CCPF ANNOUNCES

MONTHLY GROUP COACHING CALLS!

I get emails from across the US from parents with needs just like you! While some parents desire to work long term with a coach so that sensitive family issues may be addressed more comprehensively, not every parent needs this intensive coaching care. You may just feel a little stuck, have isolated questions or concerns, or would like to experience a little peer parent support once in a while.

If this describes you Together At Last Family Support has an easy answer. Our Monthly Group Coaching Calls will feature a wide variety of topics focusing on many parenting concerns. If you don’t find your concern listed in the topics list just email it in the form of a question or suggested topic.

Parents of children with special needs experience isolation and separation amidst family, friends, and community despite their best efforts. Parents of children with mental, emotional or behavioral disorders often find it difficult to cope with the family fracturing impact of their childrens severe disorders. Foster and adoptive families have their own particular parenting issues. When these issues arise within the child and family, parents struggle with where to find effective help and support for themselves and their children.

If you have questions, feel like you are losing your way with your child, or need a fresh perspective to relight your path, you are invited to join our monthly coaching calls. Only $10.00 per call, and you register individually for the calls you want to participate in. Topics are announced on this sight in the sidebar monthly. Directions for payment via PayPal and for participating in the calls are explained in the right hand sidebar of this site.

Your family is important. Your difficulties need to be addressed. You deserve to be heard. You need to know you are not alone anymore!

Email me today! Our first call will be on November 9, 2010, at 8 PM. The November Topic: REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDER – THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT RADICAL PARENTING

After years or months of paperwork, home inspections, and court proceedings, your adopted child is home at last. Whether you are a newly formed adoptive family, or a seasoned parent, you look forward to creating familial bonds and loving memories between parent and child. But, what happens when bonding is delayed?

While most children are graced with an abundance of psychological and emotional resilience helping them combat life’s challenges, some encounter great difficulties making the transition into adoption after pre-adoptive trauma. Poor attachment in an adopted or any child may be a sign of trauma. Before parents can gain insight into what trauma is, how it occurs, and what we can do about it, it is important to understand attachment and bonding.

What is Healthy or Secure Attachment?

Many foster-adoptive parents and children will begin to experience bonding magic within the first weeks of being together. Although it can have many definitions, I describe attachment simply as a deep emotional connectedness between parent and child. The attached parent is a knowing parent, attuned to their child in such a way that they meet the child’s needs at deep levels of understanding, love and parental commitment. The attachment-aware parent is able to meet their child’s needs, not only physically, but at emotional and psychological levels as well. All needs are met in a timely and appropriate manner. The parent creates the supportive structure the child craves in order to bond with the parent and grow strong. The child then experiences environmental safety, and feels surrounded by that safety in mind, body, and spirit.

Reciprocal Bonding

A sign of healthy attachment is also the reciprocal relationship of child to parent. Parenting expert and educator Pam Leo, in her book Connection Parenting – Parenting through Connection instead of Coercion, Through Love instead of Fear (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc.) states, “The level of cooperation parents get from their children is usually equal to the level of connection children feel with their parents.” A child secure in her environment more readily feels the desire and inward motivation to fulfill a parent’s reasonable requests.

A connected child shows trust in the caregiver’s leadership. He respects the adult caregiver to the extent he himself feels respected, heard, and understood. When a child believes he is loved and safe he naturally accepts parental direction without the need for harsh consequences and punishments.

When a child shows love he often manifests it through his ability to give and receive affection and empathy. He feels pride in his accomplishments, and holds a high self-esteem. The joy, care, and even charm a child experiences with a nurturing parent sparks an inner drive to be in close proximity with that parent. When separated by school or independent activities, the connected and attached child initiates or responds to re-connection with the parent through physical contact, a hug or kiss, or conversation. In other words, the child seeks opportunities to be in relationship with the parent.

Watch for my next installment…

Questions about parenting your adopted, biological, or special needs child? I can help. Reasonable rates, and the first thirty minutes are free! Contact me from this website, or: www.TogetherAtLastFamily.com

How does abandoning an infant differ from abandoning a teenager? Neither parent is capable of managing the child’s care. Emotionally painful as it is, the infant’s mother desires relinquishment of her child, while the teen’s parents are forced into relinquishment due to lack of access to mental health care. The infant’s mother does not desire continued contact, while the teen’s parents fight to hold onto whatever relationship child protective services and the judicial system will allow them to have. The teen’s parents desire the same rights offered to parents of physically sick children. They want access to intensive and residential mental health services along with adequate sources of funding. Yet, as a society, we will embrace infant child abandonment as a noble deed, while the parents of a teen forced into abandonment are admonished.

The Wescott’s, from Oklahoma, are currently in the psychiatric revolving door (see Part III). Their son is cycling in and out of the hospital. They may be forced into doing a psychiatric “lockout” leaving him at the hospital to keep themselves and their neighbors safe from harm. They will not only be charged with neglect, they could also face felony charges. What a horrible thing to do to parents who did nothing more than love a child. The only other option they have is to exhaust their life savings and legally dissolve the adoption. I have spoken to Melissa Wescott several times. They do not wish to do a psychiatric lockout. They do not wish to disrupt their adoption. They do not wish to dissolve the adoption. Nor do they want to exchange jail time for mental health care.

If you read the Good Morning America blog after the Wescott’s appeared on the show, you will note that 1 out of 8 responses said that the state of Oklahoma had some responsibility to help the Wescott’s, since their son had serious emotional issues before he was adopted.

Torry Ann Hansen acted long before the Wescott’s. She knew within months she was in over her head. She felt the Russians lied to her about her son’s emotional condition. Perhaps, she should have sought psychiatric and therapeutic care for him. Perhaps she should have escorted him back. Nonetheless, had he stayed here, the state of Tennessee would not have provided her with intensive and residential mental health services. His adoption would have been disrupted later rather than sooner.

The blogs were not nearly as kind to her as they were to the Wescott’s. Even adoptive parents criticized her. Those who supported her decision, were few and far between.

The question is not, “Is it okay to abandon a child?” The question is, “Why can’t adoptive parents have intensive mental health care and adoption preservation?” Why must they choose one or the other? Why can’t we just call a spade a spade? It is medical dependency. Does this give the government the right to strip parents of custody rights?

Until we change the laws in every state to abolish custody relinquishment for mental health care, it does give the government the ability to do just that. How did we ever get to a place where this thought process was acceptable?

(c)2010 By Toni Hoy

Toni,

Thanks you for voicing so clearly what is in the hearts of so many adoptive parents in this same position across the United States. These parents are not guilty of abandonment, rather they have been abandoned by State Mental Health Care which has forced them into a gut wrenching decision! Deborah

It is known as Reactive Attachment Disorder or Attachment Displacement. RAD is a diagnosis given to children from infancy through age 15, who display either an inability to attach to a caregiver (inhibited), or who will inordinately attach (disinhibited) to just about anyone. The traumatic causes from physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse and neglect are well documented. The manifestation of symptoms is bewildering to parents and professionals alike. These symptoms are most often severe and well known to leave shattered hearts and families in their destructive wake. I have often equated this diagnosis to children imprisoned within themselves. The intense fear and trauma of life experience has caused harm to their minds as well as their bodies. They walk through life with broken hearts and fragile wings. They see the sky, can feel the air, and long to fly. These are children with the same needs, desires, and rights to be loved, to be safe, to be healthy and strong, to play, and to be happy, as every other child. Could it be possible? Can these birds learn to fly?

RAD is often misunderstood and undiagnosed. I could find no statistical numbers of children with RAD. If is often diagnosed as a combination of other disorders, including, ADHD, CONDUCT DISORDER, PDD NOS, SELECTIVE MUTISM, SENSORY INTEGRATION DYSFUNCTION, MOOD DISORDER NOS, BI POLAR, INTERMITTANT EXPLOSIVE DISORDER, OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER, SEPARATION ANXIETY, other anxiety disorders, and PTSD. I know this because my daughter has had most of these diagnoses. Somehow it all comes back to trauma and RAD.

There is a need for propriety and urgency to help those loving, caring, and living with children who have histories of trauma and RAD. These are the most vulnerable families. These are the most fragile nests. In the midst of the raging storms and violent winds of dedicating their lives and exhausting their energy and resources to caring for and trying to heal their children I have seen, not babies, but parents fall to the ground. That is not to say their young don’t fall with them. These are tough old birds, but the stress and anguish proves too great to endure even for them.

Although adoptive parents and caregivers are not the cause of their children’s severe mental health disabilities, they are too often unwittingly caught up in being suspected or blamed, even legally charged for the tremendous aftermath of their child’s disorders. In reality, they are just parents like you or I. They are just parents,

who decide to adopt a child that perhaps no one else will adopt

who want to add to their families

who love and care for children

who are willing to take a child under unknown circumstances

Many parents are not adequately prepared for what this decision could mean to their future. Perhaps if they had known the possible truths they would have changed their minds. Perhaps not, since no entity can make that pre-determination other than the prospective parents. Perhaps with the right information, parenting education, and the matched promise of unlimited commitment of supportive services from federal, state, and local agencies, these parents will remain strong in the nest. Families will have a greater chance of remaining intact. Out of home placements will be fewer and farther in between. Adoptions will not be dissolved. Placements will not be disrupted.

After all, these parents are not the ones to blame. These parents, while perhaps not perfect, are dedicated and determined to sacrifice all for the good of their children. These parents are heroic in their actions and unconditional love toward their children.Who sees that? Does anyone see? Is anyone looking?

Some children with RAD may consistently reject a parent’s affection over the course of many years, be hyper sensitive to and/ordefensive of touch and textures, become easily aggressive, violent, dissociative, defiant, destructive of property or hurtful to pets. They may whine and cry a lot, be extremely needy and dependent even at older ages, exhibit periods of emotionally regressive behaviors, are thought to be controlling and manipulative, show wide ranges of sudden alterations of moods, and are stubbornly inflexible to the slightest changes in immediate environment. Whatever they are, THEY ARE STILL CHILDREN.

A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION TO PARENTS AND PROFESSIONALS:

Children with RAD will also be beautiful, brilliant, often academically successful, sweet, caring, talented, helpful, empathetic, darling, cute, and deeply desiring and accepting of your genuine love. With the right care and proper supports they are capable of growing both intellectually and emotionally. With a basic understanding of brain function and the affects of trauma on a child’s brain, parents ARE able to create optimal environments for their children. With strong supportive and not harsh or punitive care, children with these diagnoses can make great forward strides toward healing and promise.

THESE BIRDS CAN LEARN TO FLY!

**************

Deborah Beasley is a Certified Parenting Coach, author, presenter, and adoptive mom living in New Jersey. She is the founder of Together At Last Family Support which provides parents with classes, in-home and phone coaching, and workshops helping good parents become even better! Find more on Deborah and her services on her website at: www.TogetherAtLastFamily.com

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